Change means challenge, WCC speaker says

Globalization, polarization are complicating church relations

ATHENS, Greece (ENI) An increasingly globalized world, marked by religious diversity and tensions between faiths, is demanding that Christians reconsider the way they relate to other believers, a scholar said on May 12 during a world meeting of Christian leaders here.

"We are living today in a situation of global migration, cutting people off from their religious roots," Christine Lienemann, a professor at Switzerland's Basel university, told participants in the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism.

The May 9-16 gathering is sponsored by the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), which has 347 member churches, mainly Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox. Although Evangelical, Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches don't belong to the council, their representatives are taking part in the meeting. (...)